Preprints
There are 7999 Preprints listed.
A two-decade analysis of the spatial and temporal variations in burnt areas across ecosystems of Zimbabwe
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Understanding wildfire dynamics in space and over time is critical for wildfire control and management. In this study, fire data from MODIS (ESA/CCI/FireCCI/5_1) with ≥ 70% confidence level was used to characterise spatial and temporal variation in fire frequency in Zimbabwe between 2001 and 2020. Results showed that burnt area increased by 16% from 3,689 km2 in 2001 to 61,330km2 2011 and [...]
Environmental monitoring of antimicrobial resistant bacteria in North Carolina water and wastewater using the WHO Tricycle protocol in combination with membrane filtration and compartment bag test methods for detecting and quantifying ESBL E. coli
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing threat to human and animal health, and efforts to combat it require widespread, robust and practical monitoring of AMR presence in humans, animals, and the environment. Because early AMR monitoring efforts were cumbersome, costly, and lacked standardization, the WHO Tricycle Protocol (WHO TP) was developed and released in 2021 to standardize and [...]
The Economic Burden of Air Pollution’s Health Impact. Evaluating Single Businesses Value Chains on a Global Scale
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Engineering
Air pollution is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Since air pollution tends to concentrate around the emission point, its precise geographical assessment is particularly important. With the present work, we propose a new method to assess the impacts of any company’s emissions on human health and the economy. We address the challenge of discovering, measuring, and managing the risks [...]
Ground ozone rise caused by the larger emission reduction of nitrogen oxides than volatile organic components
Published: 2023-04-05
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences
Ground-level ozone (O3) pollution has shifted from being a scientific topic to a governmental imperative in China. We analyze the mechanism for the O3 rise observed in Shanghai during the lockdown in the spread of COVID-19 in 2022 by combining utilizing ground-level observed data, an observation-based model, and a chemical transport model. We find that the increase in O3 can be mainly [...]
Features of crevasse splay deposits and sedimentary processes associated with levee breaching by the October 2019 flood of the Chikuma River, Central Japan
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Sedimentology
Field investigations and analyses of modern crevasse splay deposits can both elucidate the processes of levee breaching and help to identify past crevasse splay deposits from geologic strata, thereby estimating the magnitudes of ancient river floods. In this study, we studied levee breach processes and crevasse splay deposits in order to determine the distribution characteristics of the [...]
The Application of CNN-Based Image Segmentation for Tracking Coastal Erosion and Post-Storm Recovery
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geomorphology
Coastal erosion due to extreme events can cause significant damage to coastal communities and deplete beaches. Post-storm beach recovery is a crucial natural process that rebuilds coastal morphology and reintroduces eroded sediment to the subaerial beach. However, monitoring the beach recovery, which occurs at various spatiotemporal scales, presents a significant challenge. This is due to, [...]
Widespread Wood Placement and Regrading Drive Lateral Connectivity and Reworking of the Channel and Floodplain in a Valley Bottom Reset to Stage 0
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Valley bottom process reset, or the excavation of high surfaces and fill of incised channels combined with large wood addition, is a new method for creating multi-channel river-wetland corridors (also referred to as Stage 0 valley bottoms). Valley bottom process reset seeks to increase lateral flow and sediment connectivity to retain flow and sediment and kickstart geomorphic processes that may [...]
Spatial Downscaling of Streamflow Data with Attention Based Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Engineering, Engineering
Accurate streamflow data is vital for various climate modeling applications, including flood forecasting. However, many streams lack sufficient monitoring due to the high operational costs involved. To address this issue and promote enhanced disaster preparedness, management, and response, our study introduces a neural network-based method for estimating historical hourly streamflow in two [...]
A novel fluoro-electrochemical technique for classifying diverse marine nanophytoplankton
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
To broaden our understanding of pelagic ecosystem responses to environmental change, it is essential that we improve the spatio-temporal resolution of in situ monitoring of phytoplankton communities. A key challenge for existing methods is in classifying and quantifying cells within the nanophytoplankton size range (2-20µm). This is particularly difficult when there are similarities in [...]
Basin and depositional control on the initiation and development of fluid-escape pipes in the Canterbury Basin, New Zealand.
Published: 2023-04-01
Subjects: Life Sciences
The influence of basin and depositional context on the formation and growth of fluid escape pipes in sedimentary basins is not fully understood. While seismic reflection data is commonly used to study these structures, direct observation and sampling of field analogues of pipes and their related structures are rare. In this study, we investigate the evolution of meter-tall fluid escape pipes [...]
Ambitious food system interventions required to mitigate the risk of exceeding Earth’s environmental limits
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability
Transforming the global food system is essential to avoid exceeding Earth’s environmental limits. A robust evidence base is crucial to assess the scale and combination of interventions required for a sustainable transformation. We developed a risk assessment framework, underpinned by an evidence synthesis of global food system modeling studies, to quantify the potential of individual and combined [...]
EfficientRainNet: Smaller Neural Networks Based on EfficientNetV2 for Rainfall Nowcasting
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering
Rainfall nowcasting provides short-term, high-resolution information on the location, intensity, and timing of rainfall, which is crucial for weather forecasting, flood warning, and emergency response. This can help people and organizations make informed decisions to mitigate the impact of severe weather events and reduce the risk of damage and loss of life. There are many attempts at tackling [...]
Settlement and anthropization of the Azores Islands
Published: 2023-04-07
Subjects: Life Sciences
The landscape of the Azores Islands is one of the most deeply transformed among oceanic islands, as most of their original forests have been replaced by other vegetation types introduced from elsewhere. This has been considered a large-scale unintentional ecological and biogeographical experiment on the assembly of island biotas and ecosystems. These transformations are known to have been caused [...]
Spatio-temporal variability of small-scale leads based on helicopter winter sea ice surface temperatures
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Surface temperature is crucial in studying the Arctic climate, particularly during winter. We examine 1 m resolution surface temperature maps of 35 helicopter flights between 02 October 2019 and 23 April 2020, recorded during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC). The seasonal cycle of the average surface temperature spans from 265.6 K on 02 October [...]
High-resolution methane mapping with the EnMAP satellite imaging spectroscopy mission
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring
Methane mitigation from anthropogenic sources such as fossil fuels and waste management has been found as one of the most promising strategies to curb global warming in the near future. Satellite-based imaging spectrometers have demonstrated to be well-suited to detect and quantify these emissions at high spatial resolution. These instruments produce so-called hyperspectral data cubes of the [...]